


I'll Run After You If You Let Me

by the_crownless_queen



Series: Spy!AU [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, Gen, Slow Romance, Spy!AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 20:20:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4113630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_crownless_queen/pseuds/the_crownless_queen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thing Percy expects on his mission is for his target to get stolen by a blonde thief just as he's about to make his move for it. He doesn't expect the way she keeps intruding on in life either. Percabeth, Spy!AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Part I**

They first meet in Paris, under the Eiffel Tower, while Percy's on a mission there.

Annabeth (though of course Percy doesn't know that's her name yet) shows up almost out of nowhere and settles by his side as he watches the crowd, casing the place – his target is supposed to have a meeting in a few hours in a café nearby – and in retrospect, maybe that should have been warning enough that she wasn't just a mere American tourist passionate about architecture.

"Did you know that they used to send signals from the top of the Tower to the French troops during World War 1? It is truly fascinating. The amount of work necessary to do that… Well, let's just say I have a profound admiration for the people who made it possible," she says, and it is so bewildering that someone would think to start a conversation this way that Percy just stands there, stunned.

Her knows there are protocols for this kind of thing – his mission was just (possibly) disrupted by an unknown agent, he should relocate and at least try to find her intentions, but the woman just looks harmless in her white dress and gold sandals that he doesn't quite know how to react. The last thing he wants is to be reprimanded another time for over-reacting (in his defense, the man had been armed, but he had also only been reaching for his cellphone) and make a scene in the middle of a mission.

But still – she may be a pretty woman, but Percy is on a very important mission (he's not sure the after of the world depends on it being successful, but that probably wouldn't be too far off), and so he has to be professional.

That doesn't mean he can't choose to use the easy way.

"I didn't know that, no," he finally answers, turning to face her. "I'm sorry, but who are you?"

She looks startled. "I'm Ally. From the tour?" She gestures at a group of people taking pictures a few feet away from them. "I thought I had gotten everyone's name, but I got here a little late so I must have missed yours…" She bites her lips, looking sheepish.

Percy relaxes, drawing his hand back from the weapon he's hiding underneath his jacket. "Actually," he starts with an apologetic smile, "I'm not from the tour. I came here on my own." Belatedly, he adds his cover name. "Peter Jones. It's a pleasure to meet you though."

Peter is the name of the alias he uses in European countries when he needs to be openly American. It's the cover he uses the most, and as such it is one of his bests.

They shake hands somewhat awkwardly after 'Ally' apologizes for her mistake, and somehow Percy ends up spending the next half an hour following her and her group around, listening vaguely to the tour's guide voice – he tends to go on rants that Percy entirely tunes out, but most of the facts he gives are very interesting – and conversing with his new acquaintance.

'Ally' doesn't say much about herself – which really should have been clue number two – but she doesn't pry into his business either, so Percy lets it go, figuring they'll never meet again anyway. He'll be gone once his mission is complete; she'll go back to wherever she came from, and probably never think of him again.

In the end, Percy has to excuse himself when he sees his target sit down in a sunny terrace. With a flash of panic, he realizes that he isn't nearly as ready for this as he should have been, and he feigns an urgent call he has to take to leave 'Ally' and her group behind.

He's supposed to wait for the transaction to take place – his intel is pretty thin on that part, so he's also supposed to get as much as he can on everyone and everything involved - and identify the package he's supposed to intercept.

The last time he had a mission with parameters so vague he nearly ended up causing an international incident that was only avoided because Thalia, who had then been his partner, had pretended to have a seizure, allowing them to escape.

He really hopes this one will go better, and so far there's thankfully no sign of trouble. It seems like Lady Luck is for once, on his side.

Percy apparently got there just in time – his target is already at a table, sipping at a cup of coffee, a silver briefcase by his side, and from the looks of it he's about to be joined by another man, blond where the first has dark brown hair, and much shorter than his companion to be.

Crossing his fingers, Percy sets his equipment to record everything being said at the café as well as everything he can see from his vantage point, and prepares to intercept the briefcase he just learned contains diamonds used to fund some obscure part of the criminal underworld.

_(Percy used to keep track of that kind of thing, but he had quickly realized that it was just depressing when he, personally, couldn't do much about it and so now he just did his best to get as much information back to HQ as he could. It only mostly worked, but it did also appease his conscience, so Percy was satisfied with this deal he had made with himself._

_Of course, that didn't stop him from requesting to be part of operations dealing with those 'obscure parts of the criminal worlds' when he could.)_

Percy's halfway across the street when the first man, the one who just sold the diamonds, leaves, and as much as he'd like to pursue him too, he can only hope that whatever information he got from the exchange the man had with his client will be enough to eventually get him arrested too.

While they don't know much yet about the man leaving, they certainly already have enough on his client, and the French police will be paying him a visit very soon, but they can't find the diamonds there – his boss had expressly told Percy so, explaining that whatever the package contained would most likely be linked to several other affairs they had in progress, and so couldn't be stuck in France for months if not years – which is why Percy's here.

Percy's plan is to wait for the blond to leave, quietly follow him, and replace the briefcase by a fake. Seeing as the French police – if they do their job right – should be waiting for him at his hotel room, Percy doubts the man will ever have the time to check, but still, he luckily has a briefcase that should hold up to a short inspection. The color is not quite right, but it should do its job for as long as it has to.

He doesn't have to wait for long. Barely five minutes after his colleague left, the second man gets up as well and heads for the streets.

The man is clever, clearly expecting the crowd of tourists in the vicinity of the Tower to hide him. Unfortunately for him though, he's dressed in a suit that is evidently of better make than the clothes most people around him wear, and that makes him stand out more than Percy thinks the man expected.

The crowd will work in Percy's favor though, since the spy thought to wear casual clothes, and it actually already is making his job easier – he doubts that his target will be able to spot him like this, a tourist amidst so many others.

Still, Percy knows better than to rejoice now. He makes sure to stay a few steps behind his target, walking only slightly faster than the man does so as to slowly decrease the distance between them, and prepares for the moment when he'll have to make a run for it.

It all goes very fast from there – and, unexpectedly enough, very wrong. He blinks and suddenly his target's on the ground, appearing to have tripped.

It doesn't take Percy long to figure out that this isn't what has happened: somebody walked right into the blond, tripped him and grabbed the briefcase Percy was supposed to steal. It all went very smoothly, and if the situation wasn't so dire, Percy would almost be impressed by how professional it all was.

As it is though, he simply swears under his breath and takes off running after his thief, following the curly and long blond hair bobbing in and out of sight until he can no longer see it.

He's almost lost hope of sighting the thief again – he must look like a lunatic too, hopping around, trying to get a better look at the place and people, but that can't really be helped – when he spots 'Ally', almost on the other side of the esplanade.

Somehow, she's staring right at him.

There's something about familiar about her now however, something Percy hadn't noticed before, and he only realizes what it is when he starts heading out her way.

She's hanging onto a very familiar briefcase he now knows only too well, and she must see the change in his demeanor as he figures this out, because she smiles at him, something bright and mischievous, showing far too many teeth, salutes him mockingly, and vanishes back into the crowd.

Percy has little hope of finding her by following her now, empty-handed as he is. She's clearly a professional and so he'll definitely need to use every resource he has access to if he wants to track her down.

He retreats, seething, back to his hotel room, aware that his last chance of completing his mission now lies on whatever information he'll be able to find about this 'Ally'.

**.x.**

He forwards all his recordings back to HQ before he packs his equipment and drops everything he won't need in his hotel room.

His computer helpfully informs him that the group 'Ally' claimed to be part of is scheduled to spend the day around the Eiffel Tower – it makes sense, Percy thinks, since the queue to go up that thing is so long, to set aside a lot of time for it – and from there finding them only takes him a handful of minutes.

He's already requested access to the surveillance run around the area, but by the time he gets them Percy knows chances are his thief will be long gone. Besides, he's never been one to sit around twiddling his thumbs, and who knows? Maybe his little trip will prove fruitful.

It isn't like he can do much else anyway.

The tourists he tracks down unsurprisingly claim to know nothing of the woman he presents as 'Ally' for a lack of a better name – he's now pretty sure that was a fake one and he's a bit offended, but then again his name's not really Peter either so…

"It happens," the guide shrugs when he hears Percy berates himself that he should have known she hadn't actually been part of the group. "We don't like it any more than you do, but there's not much we can do about it either…" He sounds wholly unconcerned, and Percy envies his attitude. However, he doesn't have the luxury of accepting things so quickly.

The tourists are reluctant to help him at first, but once he reassures them that there will be no pursuits of any kind, that there should be no legal stuff and that he'll give back everything the way it was, they're pretty quick to offer their cameras for him to review.

Percy didn't think to bring his computer with him, but he clearly should have, since the small table he's requisitioned in a nearby café is now covered in every kind of cameras one can find on the market, including some so old Percy didn't even realize they could still work.

Fortunately, the group counts among his numbers a skinny guy named Guy, who seeing his struggle, immediately offers to lend Percy his own computer, batting away the bewilderment of his companions with a simple "Well, you can never know when it'll be useful".

Percy doesn't care much for his reasons, but he gratefully accepts and downloads everyone's videos and photographs from the day on it, and sends them to his email address. He erases everything afterward (it wouldn't do for a civilian to be able to contact him so easily), and quickly gives back everything he borrowed to their respective owners, apologizing for the inconvenience.

"You're kidding, right?" Lydia, a plump woman owner of a slightly used pink digital camera, exclaims.

"This is the most fun we've had all week," adds her twin with a smirk, grabbing her own camera from the table.

"It's just like in the movie," finishes Lydia, and then the two women are off, their shoulders shaking with laughter.

Percy spends the rest of the afternoon back in his hotel room, shifting through his newly acquired files, occasionally sending a longing glance toward his open window and the blue sky he can spot from his bed, cursing 'Ally' for fooling him and himself for letting himself be fooled all the while.

Finally, just as the heat of the day starts to simmer down, Percy has managed to compile a new folder containing a few photos of his blonde thief, as well as a short video where she steps right in front of the camera as it starts to record, giving Percy the clearest shot of her face he's got.

Most of the pictures are blurry – professional photographers these people were not – but he sends them to the technicians anyway, along with the video, knowing they'll be able to do more with them than he could ever hope for.

He prints a screenshot of the video, and starts to review the video footage he's finally been sent as he waits for the lab's results on what he just sent them. It shouldn't take them long to find something – they know how time sensitive those missions often are and so their equipment is suitably efficient – but Percy finds himself antsy anyway as he watches hundreds of strangers wander in the Champ-de-Mars.

'Ally' is very good. She's clearly seen the cameras and tries to avoid them, but no one can do that entirely, and while he can't say he spots her face in any of the video files he's been sent, he remembers the way she dressed and walked, and her hair is distinctive enough that he can follow her without much trouble to an hotel he estimates is about half an hour on foot away from his.

The video shows her getting in, but not getting out.

Finally, some luck, he thinks as he logs out, grabs his jacket and the picture he printed earlier, and heads out.

It's late enough that most people have cleared from the streets but still early enough that the streetlights aren't turned on, and Percy has no trouble hailing a cab to get him where he wants to go.

Ten minutes later and a handful of euros later, he's standing in front of a hotel that looks like it has seen better days. The sign hangs a bit crooked above the entrance, but he can't say he's really surprised by this choice.

The place looks inconspicuous enough, but the reception is welcoming enough, and the staff is eager to greet him, first in French and then, when he corrects them, in an English far better than most of what he's heard so far during his mission.

"And what can we go for you?" The woman manning the front desk asks him with a smile. The tag on her top reads Alice in shiny black letters. "I'm afraid most of our single rooms are taken, but we do still have a couple free…"

"Ah," Percy answers apologetically, "unfortunately I'm not here for a room. I'm, err, here looking for someone?" He adds, almost questioningly when Alice just arches an eyebrow at him.

Her entire demeanor changes at those words. She closes off, and in a clipped tone instructs him to leave as soon as he can, because she can't help him.

He can see why his thief chose this place.

Percy has another ace up his sleeve however. Thalia, when they were partners, had been astonished to see that it worked the first time she had seen him use it and had called it an unfair advantage (Percy had personally thought that she had just been jealous his seductions skills worked better than hers), but by the end of their partnership she had just mocked him for it.

See, Percy knew how to be charming when he wanted to be, and his training at the CIA had only helped him practice this skill. The fact that he was also rather handsome – his mother said pretty but Percy really preferred handsome – only helped him in this kind of thing.

"It's not what you think," he starts with a self-conscious smile, making sure to act like he's almost ashamed to be here. "There's this girl, you see, and we met earlier and I think we really had a connection…"

The woman looks highly unimpressed by his tale, but she has stopped trying to get him out, so Percy counts it as a win.

"She gave me this address, you see, told me to meet her there tonight you see, and I know I'm a bit late, but the traffic was pretty bad, and I'd really appreciate if you could, you know tell her I'm here?"

He shows her a piece of paper with the hotel's address on it, grateful now more than ever that he had to write it for his taxi driver who couldn't understand his accent. She finally softens at his words and relaxes, moving toward the register, clearly buying into his story at least a little.

"Does this mysterious girl happen to have left you a name too, or a room number?" She inquires with an almost taunting smirk.

"Well, she told me her name was Ally, but I do happen to have a picture of her," he shots back with a wink, unfolding and then smoothing said picture on the desk in front of her.

Her eyes lit up in recognition at both the name and the picture, but he knows better than to take it as confirmation that Ally is indeed her name.

"Unfortunately, Miss Ally has already left. I'm afraid you've just missed her. I guess you must have made quite an impression," she adds, almost pityingly.

Wait, what? How could she have left? The traffic cameras had clearly shown that she had entered this hotel and hadn't left it – he had been checking them on his phone the entire time he had been in the car getting there, and no one had exited the building since he had entered it.

It doesn't make sense – Alice has to be lying. Only she doesn't look like it. She seems to believe his story, and while she doesn't exactly appear to feel sorry for him, she also doesn't present any of the usual signs of lying he's been trained to notice.

"I…" Percy starts, at a loss. "Maybe she left me a note?"

"Don't get your hopes up, but I'll check. Stay here." She goes to a back room, and return a few minutes later, a white note held in her hands. She looks pleasantly surprised as she hands it to him.

"Well, I guess you did make something of an impression then."

Percy smiles but doesn't reply otherwise, focusing his attention on the note.

It clearly came from this hotel – its name is written on the top of the page, which appears to have been ripped from a small notebook of some kind – and it's not signed. Not exactly.

That's alright. He doesn't need a signature, as nice as it would have been. Not when the only words she wrote are  _'Better luck next time'_  above a pencil drawing of the Eiffel Tower.

"Will that be all?" Alice's voice draws him out of his thoughts, and from her tone Percy can gather that this is not the first time she asks this of him.

He's strongly inclined to say yes, go back to his hotel and look for what he's missed, but something holds him back… "Actually, yes. Could you please point me to your restroom?"

The woman sighs, but five minutes later another employee, this one named Roger, escorts him further inside the building.

"I won't be long," Percy promises with a wink as he ducks inside.

Fortunately, the room has a window large enough for him to wiggle through, and soon enough Percy uses the key he lifted from Roger's pockets to open the door to what must have been Ally's room.

The place is indeed empty, and looks to have been swept clean, probably by the woman herself rather than by any employee of the hotel – Percy doubts he's ever seen a hotel room this clean before outside of magazines.

He doesn't exactly know what's he's looking for – another note maybe, a sign, some piece of evidence left behind. Something. Anything.

He's fast but efficient, leaving no place unchecked, but he's on a timer – no way Roger will believe he needs more than a dozen minutes alone in the restroom – and he can't be found here.

He feels oddly relieved at finding nothing, and attributes it to the lure of the game – he actually was starting and would hate for it to end so soon – but he is mostly disappointed. Finding some clue would have been helpful.

He gets back to Roger with barely a few seconds to spare. The man knocks on the door just as Percy closes the window, and opens it to find the spy washing his hands with a sheepish smile.

"Sorry, didn't notice the time."

Roger grunts and escorts him back outside, and then Percy is on his way back to his own hotel.

He opts to walk back, since he's no longer in such a hurry. The weather's rather nice, he'll be gone tomorrow, and he has no doubt his thief has already left the country. There's not much else he can do from here, except fill in his mission report, and he's in no hurry to do that.

His phone pings in his pocket when he's about halfway there, and when Percy pulls it out and opens the message he's been sent he finds his mystery woman's face staring back at him from an Interpol Wanted poster.

It figures.

Apparently Annabeth Chase (Percy is only remotely happy to find that he was right to believe her name wasn't Ally), age 27, is an international thief and art dealer. The file doesn't have much else on her, and Percy is not surprised. He may not have spent a lot of time with her, but he can tell she's a professional.

Honestly, he thinks she'd have made a good agent.

He's still clutching her note when he gets back in his hotel room.

' _Better luck next time', hn_ , he muses.  _Bring it on_.

He falls asleep with a smile on his face that night.

 


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Percy gets back to the US and has to deal with the consequences of his failed mission.

**Part II**

Unsurprisingly, when he gets back to the States, his superiors aren't happy.

"Your mission was to bring back the briefcase," Mr. D rants. "I see no briefcase with you."

"There was some unexpected trouble," Percy starts, but he knows it's no use.

"Unexpected trouble? Unexpected trouble is what we pay you for, boy. If you can't handle some 'unexpected trouble' then you'd probably be better off finding another job."

When he's mad, Mr. D likes to call his agents 'boys' and 'girls'. It's something Percy learned back in his training days, and Grover and he had quickly made the decision to ignore the man when he got into those moods.

'Let the storm passes,' Grover would say, elbowing Percy. 'He's just jealous we'll get to go into the field while he's stuck training us.'

It is indeed no small secret that back in his day, Mr. D had been a good field agent who had made a very big mistake – no one knows exactly what the mistake had been, only that it had to have been terrible – and had been demoted to training new recruits, where he had stayed until a few years ago, when he had been promoted to supervising missions.

"Come on now," Mr. Brunner, Percy's personal supervisor, interjects, "Percy could hardly expect a thief to get an interest in our package when we only found out about it at the last minute."

While that is indeed true, Percy can't help but agree at least a little with Mr. D's reproach. He should have been prepared for everything, and he hadn't been, and that was the reason why his mission had failed so badly.

It had been fine this time because no lives – that he knows of – had been hanging in the balance, but what about next time? Or the time after that? They can't exactly afford this type of mistake in his line of work.

While Percy mused, the two older men have clearly come to a verdict, one they waste no time in delivering.

"We know that these last few months have been hard for you, Percy," Mr. Brunner starts, looking apologetic. "What happened with Thalia was terrible, and no one would blame you if you were to take some time off."

Beside him, Mr. D nods, looking almost bored. "What he means is that we're taking you off the list of our active assets for the next month, and we'll re-evaluate your position then."

Mr. Brunner shots him an annoyed look, before turning back to Percy. "It's nothing definitive, but you understand that we have to assess your abilities now. If the problem was really just you meeting an unexpected obstacle then that's fine, but if there's a deeper problem, we have to know."

Percy bites his cheek until he tastes blood. He hates thinking about what happened to Thalia – it was his fault, no matter what everyone else insists on telling him – and so he focuses on the rest of the informations he's just been told.

"You can't just take me off active duty when I'm perfectly capable of doing my job," he protests, outraged.

"I think you'll find that we can actually, and that's what we're doing," Mr. D answers tersely, already losing interest in the conversation.

Percy looks almost desperately at his supervisor, searching for any kind of hint that this might be a mistake. Instead he thinks he might read disappointment in his mentor's eyes, and that's what makes him swallow back any other protest he might have had.

If there's one thing Percy hates, it's disappointing the people he looks up to, and Mr. Brunner, the man who first recruited him and supported him since then, is definitely among those.

"It's for the best," the older man tries to reassure his resigned subordinate as he escorts Percy out of Mr. D's office.

The worst thing is perhaps that Percy agrees with him. He can honestly admit to himself, if not to anyone else, that he hasn't quite felt up to his old standards since… Well, since he came back and Thalia didn't.

He knows that he was diagnosed with ADHD when he was barely a teenager – he remembers how good it had felt to finally have a name to put on the ceaseless itch beneath his skin, how relieved he had been to learn that he wasn't  _wrong_ , that he was just different – and that it was one of the reason the CIA had been recruited.

"I think you'll find that in our line of work, better reflexes are an asset and not a curse," Mr. Brunner had told him when Percy had asked him why they would even be interested in someone like him, someone who was unable to ever sit still, and the man had seemed so sure that Percy would fit right in that Percy had barely hesitated before signing the contract offered to him.

It was one of the few decisions Percy made in his life that he can't bring himself to regret, and he honestly doesn't think he could have found a better job.

But that he's known about his hyperactivity for so long means that he's also able to make the difference between that and what he feels these days.

This need to hurt and to fight – because the moments when he's focused on making his enemy bleed seem to be the only moments when he doesn't see Thalia's face as she was dragged away – isn't normal. It's not him, and he knows it. And well, from the looks of it, he hasn't been hiding it as well as he thought he had been.

He hadn't thought about Thalia in Paris though, Percy realizes, and try as he might to attribute it to him being focused on the mission, that doesn't quite fit. This isn't the time to examine those thoughts however, and so Percy pushes them to the back of his mind.

They've nearly reached the elevator when Mr. Brunner speaks again, and his voice drags Percy out of his musings.

"If it makes you feel any better, know that we've been considering this for a while now. Honestly, I think Mr. D's been looking for an excuse to suspend you for some time now, and your last mission just provided him one. If it hadn't been that one, it'd have been another."

This is one thing Percy never learned to appreciate in his advisor – he absolutely sucks at reassuring people.

"I'm fine," Percy shots back automatically, going for a scowl. From the look on Mr. Brunner's face, he's less than successful at it. But then again, he never was.

The man hums noncommittally, and reaches forward to call for the elevator. For a moment, his face is hidden in the shadows, but when he turns back around to address Percy, Percy is struck by how tired and – dare he say it? – old his mentor looks.

"I know you are," Mr. Brunner sighs fondly, "but well, I worry sometimes." His eyes take a far off look as he says this, and that's when Percy remembers that Mr. Brunner helped trained Thalia too. He's probably lost more agents – more partners – than Percy will ever know.

It's hard not to sympathize with the man after that, and Percy feels the urge to reassure him.

"You don't have to. I swear, I'm fine," he repeats, and he's only mostly lying this time: it does feel nice to know that people care. Something must show on his face because Mr. Brunner relents, accepting that this would be as good as he would get.

Just in time too, because the elevator has arrived, the soft 'ping' as its doors open interrupting the conversation.

Percy gets in. Mr. Brunner doesn't.

"I want you to know, Percy, that while I don't agree with the way Mr. D handled things concerning, well, your situation, I fully agree with the decision he took," the older man says with determination, leading Percy to realize that he will have to accept Mr. D's decision.

Mr. Brunner would have been the only ally whose opinion accounted for anything – without his support any attempt Percy makes at changing Mr. D's mind is doomed before it starts, and they both know it.

Percy's shoulders sag.

"I'm sorry, Percy, but this is for your own good," Mr. Brunner continues, and the worse thing is perhaps that he does look sorry. Knowing the man, making this decision while also knowing that Percy will hate it must already be eating him alive – not that the man isn't capable of handling it of course.

It does make Percy feel slightly guilty though, and so he tries his best to erase all traces of his previous disappointment. It must work at least a little because Mr. Brunner visibly lightens up, and the man even almost smiles.

The doors are just starting to close when the man startles like he just remembered something important.

"Oh, I almost forgot! You should go see Rachel. I think she's supposed to give you your next assignment."

"Wait, I thought I was suspended?" Percy asks confusedly, something that feels an awful lot like hope blooming in his chest.

"Only from acting duty," Mr. Brunner replies, and then he winks.

The door closes before Percy can do anything about it, and he hits the button for the R&D floor – better see what Rachel has in store for him before she comes looking for him.

**.x.**

Percy first meets Rachel when they're both twenty-four.

He's on a mission then – one of the few solo ones he had taken during the years he spent partnered with Thalia – and somehow, she ended up helping him stop a massive underground terrorist organization named the Titans that had been using the underground tunnels to smuggle drugs and homemade bombs out of the city.

Percy had been looking for a way in for days when Rachel had approached him, and despite his initial distrust, the redheaded woman had proved to be a veritable mine of information, as well as able to point him toward the entrance of the tunnels used by the terrorists he had been looking for.

Of course, Percy had been supposed to head in alone – something he hadn't been really all that eager to do – but Rachel had followed him inside, staying hidden in his shadow up to the point he had been caught and brought in front of the cell's leader.

The last part had been in Percy's plan right from the beginning. He just hadn't expected the leader to be a complete madman and step into some kind of weird device that was 'supposed to make him as powerful as the gods of old', whatever that meant (seriously, how did those guys even come up with these ideas?), only for the device to start powering up for a charge that, from what Percy had been able to read on the monitors, would have enough power to level Manhattan.

To this day, Percy still doesn't fully understand what happened: all that he knows is that Rachel appeared out of seemingly nowhere, hit his guard in the face with a blue hairbrush, which allowed Percy to escape his grasp and render him unconscious, and somehow disarmed the bomb with nail polish she kept in her purse.

They barely escaped the place alive as Rachel's last actions had created some kind of shockwave that destabilized the tunnels' structure, and had been met on the surface by Mr. Brunner who supposedly 'had been in the neighborhood' but had more probably tracked the GPS in Percy's phone when he had missed his last check-in.

He had taken one look at the both of them, and instead of making Rachel sign the confidentiality papers like Percy had expected him to, he had offered her a job.

Of course, Rachel still ended up signing the confidentiality agreement later on, but she had agreed to the job pretty much on the spot.

"This is so much better than shadowing my father all day," she had said, and that's how Percy had found out that his new friend's father was the CEO of a land developing company, and that she was supposed to take over after him.

Anyway, that's how, three years later, Rachel ends up working with both human resources and research and development at the CIA, with Percy often dropping by for various reasons, such as testing any new tech designs she might be involved with or bringing lunch.

**.x.**

The floor Rachel works on is underground, and so the elevator trip from Mr. D's office to her place of work takes a few minutes. It's just long enough for Percy to come to curse whoever decided that the CIA elevators needed music, and short enough that he doesn't have enough time to do more than repeat his advisor's last words in his head a couple of times.

He had been so sure that he would have to find something else to do of his days since Mr. D had uttered the words 'taken of active duty' that the words themselves hadn't really registered. He hadn't considered the fact that this could also mean that just wouldn't go out on missions for a while, however long that may turn out to be.

He's not surprised Mr. Brunner directed him to Rachel though. While giving him the description of this new version of his job probably isn't exactly in her job's description, Rachel likes handling matters concerning Percy personally as a way to thank him for 'getting' her this job – and well, Percy just thinks she's much nicer than the last person to have that job.

_(Let's just say that the less Percy thinks about Luke Castellan, the better his day will be.)_

Rachel is actually waiting for him outside the elevator. She's wearing a forest green dress, and a pen tucked in her hair somehow keeps it out of her face – it's a perfect illustration of the way she constantly refuses to conform to the dress code she's supposed to obey, even if no one dares to make these kinds of remarks around her anymore, not after she even managed to convince Mr. D that there was no problem with the way she dressed.

"Percy!" She exclaims enthusiastically as soon as the doors open. "It's so good to see you come back in one piece for once," hinting at the way he tends to come back injured from most of his missions these days.

She grabs his arm with an unassumingly strong grip, and drags him through the familiar corridors to her office, chattering cheerfully along the way about her day and the last inventions she's helped design.

It's not until she closes the door to her office that she sobers up.

"I heard about your suspension – I'm really sorry," she sighs, her hand reaching mechanically for a strand of her hair, only for it to remember about halfway that it's tied up. "I wish I could have helped you, but there was nothing I could do."

She doesn't need to tell him that she tried everything she could think of. Percy already knows that. He knew from the moment he realized that Rachel had heard about his situation, and that's just one of the reasons why he likes Rachel so much.

She gets him. She understands why he needs to keep moving all the time, why it's so important to him that he keep busy, and best of all, she doesn't mention it. She's one of his best friends just for that alone.

He casts a quick look around as he muses for an answer. The room doesn't seem to have changed at all since Rachel made it her own two years ago. The towering piles of paper never seem to move, though Percy knows for a fact that they change every other day, and there's a mess of pencils on Rachel's desk that Percy could swear has been there since day one.

Even the paintings Rachel painted herself and hung to 'give a little life to the place' have remained unchanged, no matter how many times she says she'll bring in new ones to replace them.

"It's fine," he finally says. "I guess this'll give me time to catch up on my paperwork if nothing else, at least," he finishes with a wince, only to see it echoed by Rachel.

That almost makes him smile. They both share the same hate for paperwork every employee in the building seems to have, and they often wondered why no one had found an alternative for it yet when everyone felt the same way about filling endless pages of paper.

Percy's wince lingers on his face as he thinks of all that must have accumulated while he was on missions though: during these last few months, he had made a point of taking as many as he could after all, and now it seemed like it was coming back to bite him.

Rachel's wince is very brief, and it turns into a truly devilish smirk so quickly Percy almost wonders if it had ever been there in the first place.

"Don't worry about that, it's been taken care of. Chiron came to see me, and well, we all know how much you hate sitting still so we found you something else to do while you're stuck here," she explains, calling Mr. Brunner by his codename the way she always did since she first found out that he had such 'a cool nickname'.

A mixture of dread and excitement bubbles up in Percy's stomach. "What do you mean?"

"Well, as I told you earlier, I heard about your current 'situation'," she replies, mouthing the last word as if it tasted foully. "I wanted to help, I still do, but again, that's way above my paygrade, and anyway, I kind of agree with the principle of the thing." She shrugs apologetically. "You need a vacation man, but we all know you're not going to just take one so…

"Anyway, I'd been planning to give you lighter missions for a while – like the Paris one, it was supposed to be easy you know, but of course you still managed to find trouble there. I don't know why anyone was surprised by that, honestly, it's not like it doesn't happen to you every time," Rachel sighs, throwing a playful wink at Percy that reminds him that he indeed does have a knack for finding trouble where there shouldn't be any.

"I still don't see where you're going with this," Percy admits, blinking confusedly.

Rachel shots him an annoyed look. "Patience, young Padawan, I was getting there. Anyway, I was just reading your report for the Paris mission when Chiron came into my office, and told me that our delightful head of operations wanted to suspend you for a while.

"Of course I disagreed, and Chiron did too, but he did have a point when he said that your performances haven't been their best these last few months, and that you'd probably benefit from a break. So I found you things to do around this place, and your boss went to convince his boss that it'd be a good idea to let you do them. Seeing as you're there, it seems like the man agreed," she finishes with a slightly proud tone, handing Percy one of the many manila folders lying on her desk.

Inside the folder are a bunch of pictures of people Percy's never met, each one clipped to a page detailing their aptitudes and interests.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out where Rachel is going with this.

"No. Absolutely not. I refuse," he protests, glaring at his friend.

"Really? I guess you'll have to go home and do nothing then," she says, and wow, he knows Rachel can be manipulative, but her 'I'm-innocent-no-really' still takes him by surprise every time she uses it on him. "Or I'm sure Mr. D could be persuaded to find some other job for you, if you  _really_  don't like this one."

She says 'other job' with such disdain that Percy starts picturing himself cleaning toilets with a toothbrush, the way some of his teachers used to threaten as a punition, when he knows full well that a) they're paying people to do that kind of thing and b) no one actually cleans toilets that way.

Anyway, he has no doubt that Mr. D could make the next few months highly unpleasant for him if he refused to do what he asked. Not that he had much of a choice, really, seeing as the man was still his employer after all.

"I guess I could try it out," Percy finally sighs, admitting defeat.

"Perfect. I'll tell him that you agreed right away." She takes a good look at him, and her expression softens. "Hey, cheer up Percy, it's just for a couple of months. Even Mr. D's not mad enough to keep you out of the field for longer than that, no matter how useful you'd be here or how tired you look, at least not unless you request it," she adds reassuringly.

That does actually make Percy feel a little better. He can hold out for a couple of months.

"I thought they had to do a proper enquiry in my last mission," he can't help but point out, seeing as that's what he's been told.

The redhead rolls her eyes. "Of course they have to, it's the procedure. But it's really just a fancy way of telling you to stay put for a while. I told you that we'd been trying to find a way to make you do just that. I guess Chiron and I weren't the only one to notice how bad you look."

She sends Percy a scorching look when he opens his mouth to protest – he can't be that bad, can he?

"Yes, Percy, you are. Honestly, when is the last time you slept?"

"I said that out loud, didn't I?" Percy evades her question, but really that just answered it. He would never have slipped in such a way if he wasn't truly tired in some way.

Besides, Percy honestly can't remember the last time he actually slept well – because contrary to what his friend seems to believe, he does sleep. He just can't seem to stay that way for long.

He'd never admit it, though.

Rachel must take pity on him, because she gracefully allows his misdirection with a noncommittal hum.

Her fingers drum on the table for a few instants, and just as Percy begins to consider that it might be a good time for him to leave her office, Rachel speaks again.

"We wanted it to be a surprise, but I think you'll like it more this way."

"Like  _what_  more?"

Rachel rolls her eyes again. She does that a lot around Percy. "Your new job, idiot," she replies fondly.

"Ah. I see…" He really doesn't.

Rachel smirks, but doesn't answer. Silence settles over them, and it doesn't take more than a couple of minutes for Percy to start fidgeting.

Finally, he can't stand it anymore. "So, what's the surprise?" He asks eagerly.

For all answer, Rachel points at the folder she handed him a few moments earlier. He's about to tell her that he already has skimmed its pages, when he notices a page at the back that he hadn't seen before.

He'd suspect Rachel of adding it to the folder only now, but to be perfectly honest he hadn't really paid a lot of attention to the thing, and he might have just missed it before.

The paper is barely a page too, more like a memo, and it'd make sense for Percy to have missed it – it is the definition of unremarkable.

Its contents are all but that however, at least to Percy.

"Really?" He asks disbelievingly, and if his words echoes his earlier ones, his tone is completely different. "How did you ever get Grover to agree to this?"

Rachel looks incredibly smug. "Oh, he didn't tell you? He was reassigned there, after you know, his recent injuries," she explains sympathetically. "I think he likes it there though, or at least that's what he told me. He's actually the one who suggested this. He said you'd like it, and well, he does know you better than I do."

Grover is Percy's best friend. They met on the very first day of training and had been inseparable for the entire duration of it, bonding over all kind of things, such as their dislikes for early wake-up calls.

"Grover's training the new recruits?"

"Yep," Rachel answers, popping the 'p'. "He is. And I'm sure he wouldn't mind some company."

Percy can't quite believe it. He honestly doesn't know what surprises him more: that Grover would willingly train the new recruits when Percy could still remember him swear to never go back on those training grounds, or that he hadn't told Percy about it.

"I know, it surprised me too. But as I said, he apparently likes it there." She shrugs. "Perhaps you will too."

Percy would like to say that he doubts it, but considering Grover does… Well, anything can happen, it seems. Instead he nods, and feels relieved when Rachel looks satisfied with that answer.

"One more thing before I agree," Percy says as he voices his thoughts. "You know the woman I met in Paris?"

"Annabeth Chase, the thief? Yes, I know of her – honestly, I doubt there's a person in this building who hasn't heard some version of your story," Rachel answers, amused. "Why?"

"Just…" Percy bites his lips, suddenly anxious. "Could you please send me everything you can find on her?"

Something rather frightening flashes in Rachel's eyes at those words, and Percy has the feeling he won't like what'll come next.

And indeed, he doesn't.

"So that's how it is, then?" Rachel asks teasingly. "You're leaving me for the competition? And here I thought we had something special…"

Rolling his eyes, Percy replies. "Yes, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I'd rather appreciate being able to avoid another incident such as Paris if I can… Nothing at all. So, can you?"

"You're really no fun these days, Percy," Rachel tells him with a playful scowl, "but sure, I can. I will too – I don't know what I'll be able to find though. From what I've seen so far, our file on her is pretty thin."

Smiling appreciatively, Percy thanks her. "Honestly, anything has to be better than what I know so far, which is nothing."

"You might just be right. Well, I'll see what I can do, but again, I'm really not promising anything – and don't expect it to be done immediately either, these things take time and I have a lot to do already."

"I know, I know," Percy answers, fighting back a laugh. "Take your time."

A comfortable silence settles over them, until finally, Percy sighs. "Anyway, when do I start?"

He regrets asking almost immediately when Rachel smiles a shark-like grin, and hands him a pile of files several inches thick.

"You know, I'm pretty sure I remember being told that I wouldn't have to do any more paperwork if I agreed to this," Percy points out as he accepts them.

"Whoever told you this must have been lying then," Rachel answers, a twinkle in her eyes.

"It figures," Percy mutters underneath his breath.

"Did you say something?"

"No. Nothing. I said nothing at all," he says sheepishly.

Rachel scoffs back a laugh, and shoos him out of the room. "Now go, I have other things to do. You start tomorrow, so have fun with your reading."

Cursing her in his mind – he knows better than to do it out loud around these parts – Percy exits the room.

Working with Grover again better be worth it. He can't believe he just got assigned homework again, and by a friend too! He thought he had left that behind with high school, but apparently not.

Fighting back the urge to stick out his tongue toward Rachel's office – he knows she can't see him, but it would probably make him feel better – Percy starts the trip back to his small apartment.

Apparently, he has an early start tomorrow, and a lot of reading to do before then.


	3. Part III

To the surprise of exactly no one but Percy himself, Percy discovers that he actually quite enjoys teaching when his students are willing to learn, and the new recruits, who came from all over the US to join the agency, are definitely eager to do just that.

They're different from the agents he works side by side with every day, and it takes him a few days to figure out why.

None of them is all that much younger than Percy – actually, the youngest recruit he and Grover have to train is only eight years younger – but the few years he has on them shows. They're innocent in a way he hasn't been in a long time, and his heart always kind of tightens in his chest when he sees them laughing or joking around when they think he's not looking.

"Feels weird, doesn't it?" Grover asks him one morning as they're watching the group of new recruits jog around them, and Percy nods.

"I can't believe a few years ago that was us."

"Well, to be perfectly fair, I don't think either of us ever run that slowly," Grover says jokingly, and a second later he's screaming at the exhausted men and women to pick up their pace if they don't want to be there all day.

Percy scoffs, but he silently agrees. Grover is a much kinder instructor than Mr. D had been – not that this was difficult – and though he doesn't coddle them, he also allows his students to find their own rhythm where Mr. D had used every trick in the book, as well as some that weren't, to make sure his recruits were field ready in half the time allotted for their training.

He can't speak for his friend's method yet, but Mr. D's, though unorthodox, had worked well on both Percy and Grover. Thalia too, had thrived under it, but that hadn't been the case with every recruit, as some of them had proved to be unable to handle the pressure.

Grover's way seemed to work so far, and his students already looked far healthier than Mr. D had ever had during their training years.

After the morning run and its subsequent stretching are done, the recruits have classes. Percy remembers both hating and loving them, in majority due to the fact that he had thought he was finally done with school-like settings after his graduation but ended up loving most the subjects that were taught there.

From the groans this new generation emits as they head for the classrooms, that feeling is still a popular one.

Percy has access to another perspective now though, since getting enrolled to help train the new recruits also means he gets to lecture them twice a week on various things, such as safety precautions in a fight – always very important – or camouflage training, amongst other things.

He's not exactly a teacher, more like a guest lecturer, but back when he was the one in training, having real agents illustrate the teachers' lessons had often been the best part of his day.

It kind of makes him happy to know that he can do that for other people now, but it's not the same as knowing he's helping protect his nation and its people.

M. Brunner and Mr. D both told him that it'd take time before the agents reviewing his case could decide what to do with him and if he'd be allowed to go back on the field, and though he realizes that it's only been a couple of weeks so far, and that it's probably perfectly normal that he hasn't really gotten any news on that front yet, he still wishes he knew what to expect.

The only real upside to this 'new' job – because as much as he enjoys teaching, the students are still so unbelievably naïve at times that he wants to strangle them – is that he's working with Grover again.

They used to team up, back when Percy worked with Thalia and before Grover's accident, and those had been among the best years of Percy's life.

Before he had been ordered to stay in Langley, Percy hadn't seen Grover in just over six months, and even then he hadn't had much time to spend with his friend. It had been partly because Percy had been in between two missions that had taken him to the other side of the world, but also because Grover had still been stuck in the hospital, trying to recover from the bullets that had taken out both of his knees.

Nowadays though, they have coffee every morning before they make the trainees run their seven miles course, and more often than not end up catching dinner with Rachel, because the woman would never leave her office if someone didn't come up sometimes to drag her out of it.

Grover always orders their coffee. He has the worst taste Percy has ever seen too, which is why the first time his friend suggested the coffee shop a couple of blocks over, Percy had his doubts, but the place turned out to be pretty nice.

It's small, its signboard is almost invisible and the place seems at first glance to be squeezed by the two gigantic official-looking buildings standing on each of its sides – there are a couple of floors above the place too, but the owners recently bought them and are trying to turn them into some kind of restaurant, so there are a lot of metal poles, wooden planks and tarpaulin hiding that part of the façade, making it far more noticeable than it used to be.

The tables inside are simple, made of a nice dark glossy wood, but the chairs are very comfortable. The place has a kind of homey fell to it, and the various black and white pictures of cities from all over the world somehow remind Percy of his mother's apartment.

That is probably why he likes the place so much.

He and Grover meet there at seven am, every morning. Usually, Percy runs a little late, since his place is just a bit further away from the place than Grover's is, and that's why Grover orders for the both of them.

Grover takes his coffee black. He never adds anything to it – the one time during their training Percy suggested it, his friend had given him suck a look, like he was crazy for even suggesting it, that Percy had never tried again – and he always order the same pastries with it.

Percy however, never drinks the same stuff twice if he can help it, which is why Grover always simply tells the waitress to 'surprise them'. The choices in this place may not be as numerous as they are in the nearby Starbucks, but the coffee is better, so Percy considers it a good trade-off.

He always eats a blueberry cupcake with his coffee though, because they're the closest thing to blue food he can get outside of his own kitchen.

Percy doesn't really know for how long Grover's been frequenting this place, but he can see why his friend keeps coming back. He himself has only known the place for a few weeks, but he already is kind of attached to it.

He and Grover even have their unofficially saved spot. It's a small round table by the far-off right corner of the room, and if they position the two chairs at the right angle around it, they both have a view of the entire place, including the entrance.

Grover had mocked him for it the first time Percy steered them toward that table, telling him that he should learn to relax – apparently before Percy came along, Grover just ordered his coffee and went on his way – but, well, by now that kind of thing has become an habit, and it was an habit that had saved his life several times while he was on missions, which Grover knew full well (honestly, Percy suspected that his friend had just been trying to get Percy's mind off his recent forced change of line of work).

"So," Grover starts one morning, pushing Percy's still steaming cup of coffee toward him as Percy takes a seat, "what do you think of this job? It's not as bad as you thought it'd be, is it?"

Percy shrugs offs his coat and wraps his hands around his cup, breathing in the sweet aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

He must take a moment too long to answer his friend, because Grover smirks at him and quips, "Would you like me to leave you two alone?", giving a pointed look to the cup Percy is still holding.

Years ago, Percy would have blushed, or even reacted somewhat harshly. Fortunately – or unfortunately, if you consider that this also means that he has had years to get used to Grover's particular brand of humor – Grover's jokes hardly faze him anymore.

"Like you can talk," he scoffs. "Don't forget I've seen you in the break room when you think no one's looking – your attachment to that coffee machine is unnatural."

"Penelope is an entirely different matter – she gives me life," Grover retorts dramatically, a hand resting playfully above his heart.

"She gives you coffee you mean."

"Isn't that what I just said?" Grover shots back with a smile, and then Percy is just glad neither of them was drinking, because with the laughing fit they have the last thing they need is to battle asphyxiation from coffee that went down the wrong way too.

By the time they've calmed enough that Percy feels confident enough in taking a sip of his coffee without spitting it all back out, their drinks have actually cooled down to the perfect drinking temperature.

"Anyway, you still haven't answered me," Grover starts questioningly. "What do you think of this assignment?"

Percy takes another sip of his coffee to hide the fact that he has no idea on how to answer – you'd think that he'd be able to by now, because he's spent a lot of time thinking about he's been doing these last few weeks, but that hasn't helped him at all.

He only feels slightly confused, and if he's completely honest with himself, a little bit on edge too. It's like something is coming – he can feel that much – but he has no idea what it might be, or why it might happen soon. Knowing his luck though, it'll be bad, and it'll happen at the worst possible time possible too.

"It's… interesting," he finally says, even if the words don't quite fit in his mouth.

Grover winces. "That bad, uh?"

Percy shakes his head. "No, it's not that. I mean, I really like it – I never thought I'd actually enjoy finding myself on the other side of training, but I do, really. It's just that," Percy pauses, bites his lips and sighs, "I don't know man, I guess it's just not really my thing, you know?"

Grover looks pensive at that, and for a few moments the only sounds they make are the one that come with drinking coffee.

Percy is the first one to put down his cup and speak again. "I mean no offense, but as much as I like thinking that I'm helping train the next generation of spies and agents, they're still acting like brats right now."

Grover snorts. "That is so true. You're the lucky one too, you've only known them for a three weeks – I've been saddled with them for months now. Months!"

"I'm pretty sure we were worse than they can ever hope to be," Percy retorts with a smirk. "Honestly, it's a wonder Mr. D didn't just decide to be done with us and send us back home."

"Please, Percy, we were the best of that year and he knew it. Besides, we got better."

"That's true," Percy agrees. "But hey, if we got better, then so can they, right?"

"God, I hope you're right," Grover moans, slumping on his chair. "They're gonna kill me if they don't."

"Well, if they're too much of a bother, I'm sure we can channel a bit of our younger selves to… whip them back into proper shape – and if that fails, I know for a fact that Mr. D would only be too happy to get rid of the worst elements," Percy replies jokingly.

"He would be too…" Grover says this in the same tone as Percy, but he also appears to be considering Percy's previous words.

After that, one thing leads to another, and they both end up late for the recruits' training. On the upside though, they definitely have a plan to make them sweat – Percy just hopes it won't turn into an all-out prank war this time (the training floor's bathroom has never been the same since Percy and Grover tried to blow them up, and they're supposed to be the responsible ones this time around) – or, as Mr. D had put it when he had been the one in charge of training, 'weed out the weak'.

"Is it weird that I'm actually looking forward to doing this?" Percy asks when they're hurrying on the way back – they can't run very fast because of Grover's legs, but they're not that late either, so a few minutes spent talking on the way won't make much of a difference.

"I think it'd be weirder for you not to be looking forward to it," Grover replies. "You're finally getting to put another one of your crazy schemes into play, and you're once again dragging me into it – you'd better be looking forward to it."

"First off, my schemes are never crazy," Percy retorts, offended. At Grover's incredulous look however, he quickly corrects himself. "Okay, so they may sometimes be a little extravagant, but at least they work. And secondly, I'm not dragging you into anything. You gave at least as much input as I did on this plan, I'm pretty sure that counts as being a willing participant."

"I could always say you coerced me."

"No one would ever believe you Grover – they know better than that."

"They could. I can be very convincing you know."

"Oh I know, but no one can be that convincing."

They share a smile at that remark.

"God, I missed you man," Grover admits as they stop to avoid getting run over. "I'd almost forgotten how much fun you were to be around."

"Really? Do I make such little of an impression on you? And after all we've been through together too…" Percy shakes his head mock-disappointedly, as if his friend's behavior dismayed him. "And you call yourself my friend too…"

"Hey, I did say almost, didn't I?" Grover protests amusedly.

"That you did," Percy acquiesces after a short pause. He pretends to contemplate the situation for a moment, and then smiles. "I guess I'll have to forgive you then."

"You'd better," Grover mutters. "'Forgive me' – I'll show you forgiveness…"

Laughing quietly, Percy clasps a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Don't worry, I missed you too man. I missed you too."

And he really had too. The last year had been difficult for Percy. He had been supposed to go on more and more solo missions since he had more years of experience – he could have chosen to volunteer to take another less experienced partner, the way Thalia had done with him, but instead he had opted to keep things the way they were, with Thalia as his sole partner.

Instead in this last year, Thalia had vanished from his life and Grover – the only other agent he voluntarily partnered with – had been suspended from field work for what would probably be the rest of his career, and now Percy himself has had to leave field work as well.

It's been kind of a nightmare to be honest, and as much as he loves that field work allows him to escape from the troubles that comes with his normal life, he's been welcoming the break working with Grover again is giving him.

He knows that won't last though – soon enough he'll get bored of the routine this new job has given him, and he'll want to move onto something else. He misses the adrenaline field work brings him - making new recruits run until they're exhausted and teaching them about spying is not a proper substitution for that, no matter how enjoyable those activities are.

Some of this must show on this face, because Grover looks sympathetic when he speaks again.

"You know, when we decided to be field agents, and later, when we actually became field agents, I thought I'd never find a job I'd love as much as that one. But well, I did, against all expectations. I love this job Percy, I love teaching them, and I may complain about it and everything, but at the end of the day I'm so proud of what I'm able to do there, of what I'm helping build, that I don't really care if I have to try to give a proper spy education to a bunch of people just out of school.

"I thought I was done after what happened to my legs – I thought I'd never get another chance to do something I could be proud of, but I was wrong. This is my second chance man, but it doesn't have to be yours. I can see that you don't really fit – anyone with a good pair of eyes can, and if the higher-ups know what's good for them, they'll see it too, and you'll be back in the field in no time. It'd be a mistake to waste your talent in here when you could do so much good out there. You'll see."

Touched, Percy doesn't quite know what to answer to that. He just nods and tries to swallow around the knot in his throat.

"Now come on man, I think our students are getting antsy, and we wouldn't want that – besides, we have a plan to implement, have we not?" Grover elbows Percy playfully, and just like that they move past the previous conversation.

"I think we do, indeed," Percy replies with a smirk.

That smirk is quickly wiped off by Grover's next remark.

"Anyway, what's this I hear about a woman who got the better of you in Paris? Aren't you a little old to get a crush on the enemy?"

"Okay, so firstly Annabeth's not the enemy – or at least I didn't know she was going to be when I met her. Secondly I do not have a crush on her. I met her, she stole the package I was supposed to retrieve, and I probably won't ever see her again. And thirdly, who told you that?" Percy tries to defend himself, but he knows from Grover's widening smile that his arguments can't be too convincing.

"So, you call her Annabeth already? How cute!"

By the time they get back to the base – a good ten minutes later – Percy is red-faced and he refuses to speak to Grover again.

He's also sworn revenge on whoever gave Grover his information, but he'll have to find them first – it should be easy, but the story of his 'meeting' with Annabeth is kind of a not-so-secret story (which is why he's so surprised Grover only just brought it up) so there are many suspects.

It doesn't matter – at least this will give him something more to do than watch the recruits run around them.

**.x.**

The thing is: it takes Rachel a week and a half to gather a file on Annabeth Chase and give it to Percy.

The file is pretty thin. There are a couple of pages on her childhood and family – dead mother, remarried father, two step-siblings – though the pages also indicate that she doesn't seem to have had any contact with them since she left high school, and a few more pages on thefts that can be linked back to her.

She's actually suspected of pulling off many more heists than the ones that can really be linked back to her, and Rachel helpfully printed newspaper stories about those heists. She left him a note saying that she'd try to get him the police casefiles too, but that it might take her a while.

Percy doesn't mind waiting – even if the file isn't very furnished, it has more than enough to hold his attention for a while.

By the end of the week he's read it enough times to know it by heart, though that doesn't stop him from going over it again and again. He doesn't know what he hopes to find – something certainly, and he hopes he'll at least be able to identify it when he sees it.

There's a sketch of her in there too, pinned to the first page, as well as a couple of shots of the back of her head taken by various security cameras over the years. The sketch isn't bad – it's a bit bland though.

On it, Annabeth's features seem imprecise, like the sketch artist couldn't decide on how to shade her eyes or on the length of her nose. He knows it comes from the multitude of testimonies given over the years, but still… Annabeth had been so vibrant in Paris – to see her look so normal on paper wasn't right.

Percy himself has never been good at drawing. It's a skill he admires in others – Rachel is pretty damn amazing at it actually, and she had offered to give him lessons a few times. Percy had never taken her up on it, maybe out of remembrance of endless and hopeless art lessons when he was younger, but now he finds that he kind of regret it.

What he wouldn't give to be able to put his thoughts, his memories on paper the way Rachel so easily seems to. Perhaps then he'd be able to make sense of what he feels and what he remembers.

If he could, he'd paint Annabeth the way he had first seen her: radiant in the sunlight and somehow innocent – not the way a child is innocent, but the way someone who believes they have the entire world ahead of them. She'd be standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, somehow the only face in the crowd people can identify.

He doesn't need to be a genius to guess at what that might mean, and that's why he's at least partly relieved he doesn't know how to draw or paint, so that no one will ever have the chance to interpret this.

Despite this, he finds himself sketching snippets of what he remembers about her everywhere – her eyes, her fingers or her hair – all in the same black ink he writes his notes with.

The floor by his desk is covered in torn up or rolled up pieces of paper (his trashcan overflowed a long time ago, and he's too lazy to go to the trouble of emptying it when a) it's only paper and b) it'd end up filled again not long after that) because they never look quite right, and if anyone asks to see his notes on Annabeth Chase he'll have to refuse.

He knows himself well enough to realize that he's not going to be able to stop until he finds what bugs him so much about this woman, so he just stocks up on paper and black pens. He draws the line at trying to find the proper shade of yellow for her hair though.

_(The first night after he gets Annabeth's file from Rachel, he dreams of golden hair and a laugh that sounds like the wind whirling through tree leaves._

_There's a warm light up above too, maybe the sun – probably the sun – but beneath him is a great dark chasm._

_There's a voice asking him for direction. It's so faint he can barely hear it - it's not even a whisper - but the voice is Annabeth's. He is sure of it._

_There's a hand in his too, but when he turns to see to whom it belongs, he sees no one._

_He wakes up with a taste in his mouth he can't quite name, his lips tingling, and with the definite feeling that once again, something is about to go wrong._

_He just wishes he could know what it might be.)_

**.x.**

Five months after he got back from Paris, Rachel drops by one of his 'lectures'. She waits by the door until he's done with it, but by then everyone – including him of course – is more interested in what brings her out of her office willingly, so he looks to the teacher, who thanks him and lets him leave with Rachel.

Rachel greets him with an, "I'm not supposed to be here.", which is about the less reassuring thing he's ever heard her say.

His heart skips a beat and then starts beating faster. He arches an eyebrow questioningly at his friend, not trusting his words right now.

Rachel smiles and punches him lightly in the arm.

"You didn't hear it from me, but they caught the guy who sold the diamonds to your last target, and we both know what that means."

"I'm off the hook," Percy answers, his lips stretching into a smile.

"You're off the hook," Rachel confirms with a smile echoing his.

His elation doesn't last long – seconds later he's already biting his lips, doubt filling his mind. "You're sure?"

"Sure as I can be. Someone should be coming to see you about it soon." She pauses for a moment, still smiling, and then she shakes her head. "Anyway, I should be getting back to my office now."

And Rachel vanishes, seemingly into thin air, in the time it takes him to blink, leaving him alone in the corridor, fifty feet away from the class he just left, happier and more excited than he's felt in a while. He doesn't even have the time to thank her.

He could go back to the students, but he doesn't. Instead his feet lead him outside.

He still has trouble believing what he's just heard when Grover finds him.

"Hey man, Rachel just told me the good news – see? You were worrying for nothing, just like I told you you were."

"Is there anyone she hasn't told?" Percy asks jokingly.

"You know, I'm not sure," Grover replies. "Probably – I mean, this is a big place. I'm sure we can find someone who doesn't know yet."

"Ha ha ha, very funny," Percy says dryly. "She's going to get in trouble one day.

"Oh relax man, she's just being a good friend – besides, you know we like Rachel way too much over here to let anything happen to her."

"I know, I know," Percy laughs. "It was nice of her."

"You should send her a fruit basket, she'll get a kick out of that."

And she would, Percy realizes. She really would. "Maybe I will."

The rest of the day goes by without any other untimely interruption, though Percy could swear that time has slowed down just to make him feel more anxious.

He spends the day with sweaty hands and a heart beating so fast and so loud it's a wonder no one else can hear it.

Finally, he gets a text from Mr. D when he's on his way home, telling him to swing by his office tomorrow morning.

He barely sleeps that night, and he's up bright and early the next day, and in front of Mr.D's office ten minutes before the mentioned time.

Mr. Brunner is there too, and he sends a reassuring smile Percy's way.

Fifty minutes later, Percy exits the office with the authorization to go back into field work – though he has a few aptitude tests to take first (not that he's worried about those, since he could probably do them in his sleep with how hard he trained for them).

Hopefully, in a month at most he'll be leaving this place – and its damned paperwork (training recruits apparently included filling reports on them too, something that Rachel had forgotten to mention when she had offered him the position. It was no wonder Mr. D had been so grumpy all the time when he was in charge of training, Percy would have been the same had he been forced to spend years filling paperwork) – behind for a while.

He'll miss his coffee dates with Grover though, even if they can always resume them whenever he finishes his missions and is around for a while.


End file.
